8

travell'd by the help of the Compass; and spent forty days and forty nights, in going from Damaf cus to Mecca. RAWOLF alfo, in his Itinerary of Syria, affirms, that the 7 Guides of the Caravans, thro the fandy defarts, direct their way by the Compafs, as Pilots do their course at fea. So that travellors by land (fays Dr. Hyde, after quot ing these Paffages) cou'd not always find the right way over the vaft plains of the wilderness, without the guidance of the magnetic Needle. For in the Eaft there are no pofts or landmarks fet up in thofe defarts; but all the paths, if any fuch there were, are every moment cover'd by moving fands, in which you look in vain for firm ground: while quite around you there appears nothing, but a certain appearance of water, call'd Serab; deceiving the eys, and deluding thirty passengers with the hopes of finding drink, for which they fomtimes go out of their way. It wou'd be fuperfluous to allege more teftimonies for a thing fo well known, and in present ufe, all voyages being full of fuch accounts.

VI. NEVERTHELESS, where the defart happen'd to be ever fo well known to fome men, who cou'd ferve for Guides to the reft, and when there was alfo a neceffity of travelling by night as well as by day; there a FIRE elevated by art, as it could not fail of appearing a great

7. Viarum duces per arenofa deferta vias fuas dirigunt per Compaffum, codum modo quo pilotae faciunt per mare.

8. Adeo ut ne quidem, per terram itinerantibus, femper liceret vaftiffima defertorum latifundia recto tramite peragrare, abfque Acus magneticae directione. Nam in Oriente, per invia folitudinum aequora, nulli funt viarum cippi; fed omnes, fi qui fuerant, quovis momento operiunt mobiles arenae, in quibus firma terra fruftra oculis perquiritur : & totum circuitum ambit nil, nifi vifum perftringens eopaved, Serab dicta; quae fiticulofos viatores faepe aquarum fpe deludit, & e via feducit. De Relig. ver. Perf. pagg. 495, 496.

way

way off in the night-time by its Flame, and in the day-time by its Smoke: fo, according to the fignals and orders given to the Army, they cou'd know when to march or to halt, as it mov'd or as it refted; and how long to continue in one place, as this fire was to be fixt over the General's tent, or to prepare for a march, when it was taken down from thence. That the Pillar of Cloud and Fire was of this fort, I am now going to fhow according to my promise. Yet in doing this I fincerely proteft, what the event will demonftrate to the moft Sceptical, that my defign is as much to do Juftice to MOSES, whom I cannot too often repeat how much I venerate: as to clear up a matter of fact in a most antient book, on the credibility of which our holy Religion is founded; and which an inquirer into obfolete cuftoms and manners, even among the greatest Infidels, will own to deferve explication no lefs than HERODOTUS or LIVY. I likewife promife, that I fhall by no means impofe upon my readers, by the art of certain men (whofe profeffion obliges them to ufe none) in making every thing of any thing, and any thing of nothing: that is, by having recourse from the literal to the allegorical, from the allegorical to the tropological, and from the tropological to the anagogical fense of Scripture. These fineffes, not to be indur'd in explaining the profaneft author, I deteft and defpife; efpecially us'd in a book we hold to be facred, and which leaft needs them of all others: nor is it in truth to palliate any thing in the book, that these fqueezing engines are fram'd; but to find that in it which is not there, or, tho it be there, to alter the true meaning of it, if not quite to deny the fact. Nay, if the Scripture did not bear me cut, I fhou'd not be over-forward in refting

any

:

any where upon Metaphors, tho common to all languages: for the original Names of things being few, the reft are neceffarily coin'd from fimilitude, or by comparison.

101

VII. THUS, not to leave the fubject before us for examples, Flame and Smoke, naturally afcending, are thence call'd Pillars; as not onely Smoke, but even Duft, is very fignificantly call'd a Cloud. QUINTUS CURTIUS ufes the Phrase of a Cloud of duft, that mounted up to the sky : and, by a bolder figure, we read of a Cloud of Heb. 12.1. witneffes in the Epiftle to the Hebrews. Even Water is call'd a Pillar. PLINY defcribing a Spout, which is often feen at Sea, fays, 'tis call'd 1o a Pillar, when the Water condenfing, and ftanding upright, is fuftain'd by itself. For the like reafon LUCRETIUS Compares a certain firy Wind or Tempeft by the Greecs call'd Prefter, to a Pillar defcending from the sky. The thick Ezek. 8. Cloud of incenfe in Ezekiel none, I fuppofe, will deny to be a Cloud of smoke; fince incenfe can no otherwise form fuch a cloud, but by its smoke when burning. After JOSHUA had got Ai fet on fire by a ftratagem, and that it is faid the Smoke of the Tof. 8.20, city afcended up to heaven, I hope no body will say, but it might then be justly compar'd both to a Pillar and to a Cloud. Yet left any fhou'd, out of pervefness or ignorance, deny a thing fo evident, we find exprefs mention made in the Old Teftament of Pillars of smoke, When Gibeah

II. & 10.

4.

21.

II

9. Nubes pulveris, quae ad coelum ferebatur. Lib. 4. cap. 15, Item lib. 5. cap. 13.

10 Vocatus & Columna, cùm Spiffatus humor, rigenfque, ipfe fe fuftinet. Hift. Nat. lib. 2. cap. 50.

11. Nam fit, ut interdum, tanquam demiffa Columna

In mare de coelo defcendat, &c. Lib. 6. ver. 425, 432.

was

was long after fet on fire, the Flame therof did Jud. 20. arife with a Pillar of fmoke. Here you have at 40% once both a Pillar of fmoke and fire. Who is this, fays the love-fick Bride in the Canticles (which by the way is the oldest Paftoral now extant in the world, where, befides the Bride and Bridegroom, the Chorus of the Daughters of Jerufalem bears a confiderable part) who is this that comes out of the wilderness, like Pillars of fmoke? Cant. 3. 6. alluding to the myrrh, incenfe, and powders, with which the longing Bridegroom was perfum'd. JOEL has alfo Pillars of smoke, in as Joel 2.30% plain words as I write them here. And left any mortal might, after fo many glaring inftances, deny the Cloud to have been Smoke, we have ISAIAH prophefying of the reftoration of Ifrael, and pofitively explaining the word Cloud by the word Smoke, when he alludes to the guiding Cloud in the Wilderness. And the LORD, fays he, Ifa. 4. 5. will create upon every dwelling place of mount Sion, and upon her Affemblies a Cloud, and Smoke by day, and the Shining of a flaming Fire by night. He muft wilfully fhut his eys, who can refift this light; whether of flaming Fire by night, or of a Cloud of smoke by day. These paffages I have produc'd to fhow, that as the literal fenfe of Fire and Smoke, any more than that of other words, ought never to have been abandon'd without a manifeft neceffity; fo to prove further, that the words Pillar and Cloud did inferr no fuch necef fity, being very common and proper expreffions for things ever ascending, if not violently diverted from their natural tendency: and that therfore if the Pillar of Cloud and Fire, which makes our fubject, be otherwife understood than of ordinary Fire and Smoke; fuch an interpretation muft needs be grounded on certain circumstances not poffible to be fo understood, and fuch as never happen'd

Exod. 12.

37, 38.

happen'd in the course of Nature, neither before nor fince.

VIII. TO know whether this be fo or no, after calling to mind what we faid before about the manner of Armies or Caravans paffing thro vaft defarts, antiently by the guidance of the Starrs, and more lately by that of the Compass; let us obferve, that when the Ifraelites went out of Egypt, they amounted not onely to the number of fix hundred thousand men, befides women and children, and a mixt multitude that follow'd them: but that under the conduct of MoSES their General then, and foon after their Legiflator, they march'd in military order, and were to all intents and purposes an Army. This I neceffarily gather from feveral places of the Pentateuch, where they are faid to have gone out of Ibid.6.26. Egypt by their Armies, and with a high hand. But, & 12. 41, from a certain place in Exodus, we may even 51.& 14.8. guefs at the order of their march, namely, in five columns for the word that is there render'd in Ibid. 13. our English tranflation harnessed, the learned in the Hebrew tongue will find to fignify 12 by fives. Don But let this be as it will, that fome fuch order they obferv'd is manifeft, from their being faid

Num. 33.

1, &c.

18.

12. There's nothing more certain, than that the plural won fignifies Fives, and fignifies this onely, if any regard be had to its radical won five: but fome Rabbins, who cou'd perceive as little order out of their own brains as in them, explain this word by that of 7 prepar'd, or girt either for action or a journey; nor are we the onely People, who have rafhly follow'd their authority. I cannot affent to what Monfieur Le CLERC writes on this place; and wonder he fhcu'd deny the Ifraelites went arm'd out of Egypt, confidering the texts I bring here to prove it, and the feveral Princes and States they conquer'd, before their entring into the land of Canaan.

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